There was Matthew, of course, but he hardly counted as interesting. First of all, he was married, and only recently so, and then even if he had been available he was so … She struggled to find the right word to describe Matthew – so domestic? Or beige? Beige was a good word, and its application to Matthew was particularly appropriate because of the colour of the sweater that he wore. Kirsty had complimented him on it – another lie – and Matthew had explained about distressed oatmeal and how that was the colour that he had read was being taken very seriously by menswear designers. And then there were those crushed-strawberry cords of his …

Matthew warmed to the theme. ‘Denim’s finished,’ he said. ‘Very yesterday.’

Kirsty smiled. It was very yesterday to use the expression very yesterday, but poor Matthew could hardly be expected to know that. And denim was not finished. Everybody wore it. All the guys, as she put it; all of them; and they look so cute in denim, she thought, and out of it too, now that she came to think of it. Wicked, she whispered to herself. Wicked!

‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘It’s all about what makes you feel comfortable. That’s what clothes are for, aren’t they? To be comfortable in.’

Matthew agreed, but he doubted very much that this was Kirsty’s own philosophy of dress. One only had to look at her shoes, with their narrow, pointed toes, to see that if she believed in comfort this did not extend to her feet; nor, it had to be admitted, to her midriff, which was exposed to the elements and must have been cold, even in the summer weather, when the wind came from the wrong direction, which in Edinburgh was from the north, the south, the east or the west. And that was not the end of her stomach’s suffering; her jeans were extremely tight and one could see how they pinched the skin when she sat down. They were very affectionate, of course, hugging the contours of her hips and elsewhere – as Matthew politely put it.

He wondered whether she had put on weight and had been unable to buy a new wardrobe to cope with increased girth. Many students were extremely hard up and presumably had to economise on clothing, but Matthew sensed that Kirsty’s garb reflected fashion rather than financial considerations. That was not an entirely bad thing. It was better, in general, from the gallery’s point of view to have a fashionable assistant rather than one who was a frump.

When Matthew returned to the gallery that morning, he found her sitting at his desk paging through a catalogue from one of the London auction houses.

‘Enjoy your coffee?’ she asked, looking up from the catalogue.